Pink Dolphins

I found you floating face up
In the brown curling jungle river
With a broken heart
Taking on water
Leeches in your eyes
The current lapping waves onto the islands
     of your pale breasts
You told me I could follow the stars
That their trails would take me home
But every star is where I came from
Every star is where I’m going
Tiny grey black-eyed perch kissing your skin
     where my own lips used to rest
Tan lines on your hips
Tiny wrinkles on your toes
My limbs wrapped in wet clothes like a new flesh
Draped over my hollow bones
Protecting the water inside of me from the water without
I wonder what you’ll see on the river tonight
When the world floats by in greens and sprinkles of stars
Conversations with pink dolphins
Comparing labia
As they sing shrill songs lamenting better days downstream
I call your name from the bridge
My voice a scream
An echo
Nonsense in the still darkness
Life must go on, you say
Ignoring my attempts to retrieve you
As your long hair swarms slow motion about your peculiar face
Life must go on
And I must forget you
Ten thousand jungle noises drown my reply
Invisible hands pull you away from me
Always slightly stronger than whatever I can muster
The Pirarucu whispers in your ear
It’s time to go
The Jaguar, always watching, drinks from a pool at your throat
Don’t leave me like this, I say
But without another word you fade into the muddy river
To become silt and sand
To eventually empty into an enormous lonely sea
I am left forever with the image of your long nipples
     slipping beneath the surface
Like duel periscopes
3.9.2012